Simpler Ways To Drive Growth Across The Customer Journey With Video

Consumers are moving faster, jumping from channel to channel, and researching more often in unexpected ways. This explosion of touchpoints means more opportunities—and more complexities—for marketers. But just because today’s customer journey is more complicated, doesn’t mean orchestrating your advertising campaign has to be. At Advertising Week New York, we’re sharing new ways to help marketers use video to more efficiently and effectively connect with consumers across their purchase journey.

A simpler way to drive reach

We’re constantly working on better ways to help you achieve your marketing goals—whether you want to build awareness for a brand, shift perceptions, or drive a specific action. But while it’s great to have options, mixing and matching these solutions takes time and can add complexity. Today we’re announcing Video reach campaigns—a simpler, more efficient way for marketers to achieve their brand awareness goals with YouTube. 

Rather than managing separate campaigns for 6-second bumper adsskippable in-stream ads, and non-skippable in-stream ads, now you can upload multiple video creatives into a single campaign. From there, Google’s machine learning will automatically serve the most efficient combination of these formats to help you reach your audience at scale.

Early adopters like Ford are already seeing strong results using Video reach campaigns. In alpha tests, the automaker lowered their campaign cost over 20 percent compared to their previous YouTube benchmarks. “Ford is using data and machine learning technology, like Video reach campaigns, to drive a learning culture across all of our media. The positive results of the Video reach campaign not only provided cost efficiencies while maintaining effectiveness but also the confidence to implement this tactic across additional campaigns” says Lisa Schoder, head of U.S. media.

A complete solution across the journey

For brands looking to build a full-funnel video strategy, we recommend complementing Video reach campaigns with TrueView for action to drive whatever online action is important to your business. Soon TrueView for action ads will seamlessly extend to the YouTube Home feed, a tremendous opportunity for any advertiser looking to drive more, high value conversions. The Home feed has long been a great place for users to discover their next favorite creator, and now it can be a great place for them to take action with your brand.

Reach audiences where they are watching 

 In addition to Video reach campaigns, we’re also bringing the YouTube Masthead to our fastest growing surface—the TV screen, where daily watch time tops 250 million hours per day. This means advertisers have a unique opportunity to reach people who are increasingly cutting the cord, right where they are watching their favorite content. 

Through the globally-available beta, marketers can purchase the YouTube Masthead on TV screens on a cost-per-thousand (CPM) basis, and customize the audiences they want to see it. Like CPM-based Mastheads on the desktop and mobile home feed, it will be available as a reserved placement to ensure brands can drive the visibility they need on the dates that matter most. It can be purchased as part of a cross-screen or single-screen Masthead buy.

And, we know the rich audio and visual experience of YouTube on TV screens means the potential to drive upper-funnel impact is greater than ever. According to a recent experiment we conducted with Media Science, YouTube ads on TV screens drive a 10 percent greater lift in recall than ads on linear TV. 

By focusing on marketing objectives rather than media tactics, we believe we can be a more strategic partner to help you sustainably grow your business. We hope these new solutions help you make it easier for you to get ahead of the pack and drive real results across the entire customer journey.

Source: Official Google Webmasters Blog

Google Ads Auction-Time Bidding Comes To Search Ads 360

Smart Bidding in Google Ads uses machine learning to set bids at auction-time by factoring in a wide range of signals that help predict performance. Now you can take advantage of Google Ads auction-time bidding in your Search Ads 360 bid strategy. By activating auction-time bidding you can enhance your performance when bidding on Google Search, while still maintaining your cross-channel bidding strategy powered by Search Ads 360. During beta testing hundreds of Search Ads 360 advertisers enabled Google Ads auction-time bidding and saw an average lift in conversions of fifteen to thirty percent at the same or better ROI.

Identify more opportunities with auction-time signals

Every day billions of people turn to Google to find answers. While people are often searching for the same things, their searches are unique thanks to their context. This includes their device, browser, language, location, time of day, and other factors. Google Ads auction-time bidding automatically sets bids based on these signal combinations.

For Vodafone, factoring these signals into its bidding strategy was mission critical. Vodafone is one of the world’s largest telecom companies with mobile operations in 25 countries. During the beta period, Vodafone enabled Google Ads auction-time bidding in Search Ads 360 to ensure the right bid was being set for each auction across every location in which they operate. Now the team plans to activate Google Ads auction-time bidding across their Search Ads 360 bid strategies.Auction-time bidding in Search Ads 360 has enabled us to leverage the full potential of Google’s Smart Bidding technology in combination with Search Ads 360 Floodlights. As a result we have been able to lower our cost-per-conversion by 15%.Samantha Mikula
Marketing Specialist, Vodafone

Reach more customers when they are ready to convert

Google Ads auction-time bidding anticipates when a conversion is likely by analyzing your account history, Floodlight conversions, and exclusive signal combinations. This unique approach improves Search Ads 360 bidding results by helping you reach more customers when they are ready to convert.

Head of Marketing, Jamima White, at Australian energy company AGL, discovered that Google Ads auction-time bidding helped drive results for her business in a competitive environment. With Google Ads auction-time bidding enabled, AGL saw conversion volume increase nineteen percent at the same cost per acquisition.With Search Ads 360 and Google Ads auction-time bidding we have been able to increase conversions by 19% while maintaining the same cost per acquisition efficiency.Jamima White
Head of Marketing, AGL

Give Smart Bidding time to learn and improve

Google Ads auction-time bidding performance improves over time with more data. When enabling auction-time bidding, plan for a one-week window where Google Ads Smart Bidding learns about your business and doesn’t set auction-time bids. After the initial learning period, Google Ads will begin setting auction-time bids while continuously learning and adapting to changes in your performance. 

How to enable Google Ads auction-time bidding functionality in Search Ads 360

Auction-time bidding in Search Ads 360 is generally available for Google Search campaigns, and launching in open beta for shopping campaigns. If you’d like your shopping campaigns in Google Ads added to the beta, reach out to your account representative.

To get started with Google Search campaigns navigate to an existing bid strategy. Then, under “Engine features”, check the box for “Auction-time bidding.”

Source: Official Google Webmasters Blog